The Gold Bat

by P. G. Wodehouse

  XXIII

  WHAT RENFORD SAW

  The health of Master Harvey of Seymour's was so delicately constitutedthat it was an absolute necessity that he should consume one or morehot buns during the quarter of an hour's interval which split upmorning school. He was tearing across the junior gravel towards theshop on the morning following Trevor's sparring practice with O'Hara,when a melodious treble voice called his name. It was Renford. Hestopped, to allow his friend to come up with him, and then made as ifto resume his way to the shop. But Renford proposed an amendment."Don't go to the shop," he said, "I want to talk."

  "Well, can't you talk in the shop?"

  "Not what I want to tell you. It's private. Come for a stroll."

  Harvey hesitated. There were few things he enjoyed so much as exclusiveitems of school gossip (scandal preferably), but hot new buns wereamong those few things. However, he decided on this occasion to feedthe mind at the expense of the body. He accepted Renford's invitation.

  "What is it?" he asked, as they made for the football field. "What'sbeen happening?"

  "It's frightfully exciting," said Renford.

  "What's up?"

  "You mustn't tell any one."

  "All right. Of course not."

  "Well, then, there's been a big fight, and I'm one of the only chapswho know about it so far."

  "A fight?" Harvey became excited. "Who between?"

  Renford paused before delivering his news, to emphasise the importanceof it.

  "It was between O'Hara and Rand-Brown," he said at length.

  "_By Jove!_" said Harvey. Then a suspicion crept into his mind.

  "Look here, Renford," he said, "if you're trying to green me--"

  "I'm not, you ass," replied Renford indignantly. "It's perfectly true.I saw it myself."

  "By Jove, did you really? Where was it? When did it come off? Was it agood one? Who won?"

  "It was the best one I've ever seen."

  "Did O'Hara beat him? I hope he did. O'Hara's a jolly good sort."

  "Yes. They had six rounds. Rand-Brown got knocked out in the middle ofthe sixth."

  "What, do you mean really knocked out, or did he just chuck it?"

  "No. He was really knocked out. He was on the floor for quite a time.By Jove, you should have seen it. O'Hara was ripping in the sixthround. He was all over him."

  "Tell us about it," said Harvey, and Renford told.

  "I'd got up early," he said, "to feed the ferrets, and I was justcutting over to the fives-courts with their grub, when, just as I gotacross the senior gravel, I saw O'Hara and Moriarty standing waitingnear the second court. O'Hara knows all about the ferrets, so I didn'ttry and cut or anything. I went up and began talking to him. I noticedhe didn't look particularly keen on seeing me at first. I asked him ifhe was going to play fives. Then he said no, and told me what he'dreally come for. He said he and Rand-Brown had had a row, and they'dagreed to have it out that morning in one of the fives-courts. Ofcourse, when I heard that, I was all on to see it, so I said I'd wait,if he didn't mind. He said he didn't care, so long as I didn't telleverybody, so I said I wouldn't tell anybody except you, so he said allright, then, I could stop if I wanted to. So that was how I saw it.Well, after we'd been waiting a few minutes, Rand-Brown came in sight,with that beast Merrett in our house, who'd come to second him. It wasjust like one of those duels you read about, you know. Then O'Hara saidthat as I was the only one there with a watch--he and Rand-Brown werein footer clothes, and Merrett and Moriarty hadn't got their tickers onthem--I'd better act as timekeeper. So I said all right, I would, andwe went to the second fives-court. It's the biggest of them, you know.I stood outside on the bench, looking through the wire netting over thedoor, so as not to be in the way when they started scrapping. O'Haraand Rand-Brown took off their blazers and sweaters, and chucked them toMoriarty and Merrett, and then Moriarty and Merrett went and stood intwo corners, and O'Hara and Rand-Brown walked into the middle and stoodup to one another. Rand-Brown was miles the heaviest--by a stone, Ishould think--and he was taller and had a longer reach. But O'Haralooked much fitter. Rand-Brown looked rather flabby.

  "I sang out 'Time' through the wire netting, and they started off atonce. O'Hara offered to shake hands, but Rand-Brown wouldn't. So theybegan without it.

  "The first round was awfully fast. They kept having long rallies allover the place. O'Hara was a jolly sight quicker, and Rand-Brown didn'tseem able to guard his hits at all. But he hit frightfully hardhimself, great, heavy slogs, and O'Hara kept getting them in the face.At last he got one bang in the mouth which knocked him down flat. Hewas up again in a second, and was starting to rush, when I looked atthe watch, and found that I'd given them nearly half a minute too muchalready. So I shouted 'Time', and made up my mind I'd keep more of aneye on the watch next round. I'd got so jolly excited, watching them,that I'd forgot I was supposed to be keeping time for them. They hadonly asked for a minute between the rounds, but as I'd given them halfa minute too long in the first round, I chucked in a bit extra in therest, so that they were both pretty fit by the time I started themagain.

  "The second round was just like the first, and so was the third. O'Harakept getting the worst of it. He was knocked down three or four timesmore, and once, when he'd rushed Rand-Brown against one of the walls,he hit out and missed, and barked his knuckles jolly badly against thewall. That was in the middle of the third round, and Rand-Brown had itall his own way for the rest of the round--for about two minutes, thatis to say. He hit O'Hara about all over the shop. I was so jolly keenon O'Hara's winning, that I had half a mind to call time early, so asto give him time to recover. But I thought it would be a low thing todo, so I gave them their full three minutes.

  "Directly they began the fourth round, I noticed that things were goingto change a bit. O'Hara had given up his rushing game, and was waitingfor his man, and when he came at him he'd put in a hot counter, nearlyalways at the body. After a bit Rand-Brown began to get cautious, andwouldn't rush, so the fourth round was the quietest there had been. Inthe last minute they didn't hit each other at all. They simply sparredfor openings. It was in the fifth round that O'Hara began to forgeahead. About half way through he got in a ripper, right in the wind,which almost doubled Rand-Brown up, and then he started rushing again.Rand-Brown looked awfully bad at the end of the round. Round six wasripping. I never saw two chaps go for each other so. It was one longrally. Then--how it happened I couldn't see, they were so quick--justas they had been at it a minute and a half, there was a crack, and thenext thing I saw was Rand-Brown on the ground, looking beastly. He wentdown absolutely flat; his heels and head touched the ground at the sametime.

  "I counted ten out loud in the professional way like they do at theNational Sporting Club, you know, and then said 'O'Hara wins'. I feltan awful swell. After about another half-minute, Rand-Brown was allright again, and he got up and went back to the house with Merrett, andO'Hara and Moriarty went off to Dexter's, and I gave the ferrets theirgrub, and cut back to breakfast."

  "Rand-Brown wasn't at breakfast," said Harvey.

  "No. He went to bed. I wonder what'll happen. Think there'll be a rowabout it?"

  "Shouldn't think so," said Harvey. "They never do make rows aboutfights, and neither of them is a prefect, so I don't see what itmatters if they _do_ fight. But, I say--"

  "What's up?"

  "I wish," said Harvey, his voice full of acute regret, "that it hadbeen my turn to feed those ferrets."

  "I don't," said Renford cheerfully. "I wouldn't have missed that millfor something. Hullo, there's the bell. We'd better run."

  When Trevor called at Seymour's that afternoon to see Rand-Brown, witha view to challenging him to deadly combat, and found that O'Hara hadbeen before him, he ought to have felt relieved. His actual feeling wasone of acute annoyance. It seemed to him that O'Hara had exceeded thelimits of friendship. It was all very well for him to take over theRand-Brown contract, and settle it himself, in order to save Trevorfrom a very bad quarter of a
n hour, but Trevor was one of those peoplewho object strongly to the interference of other people in theirprivate business. He sought out O'Hara and complained. Within twominutes O'Hara's golden eloquence had soothed him and made him view thematter in quite a different light. What O'Hara pointed out was that itwas not Trevor's affair at all, but his own. Who, he asked, had beenlikely to be damaged most by Rand-Brown's manoeuvres in connection withthe lost bat? Trevor was bound to admit that O'Hara was that person.Very well, then, said O'Hara, then who had a better right to fightRand-Brown? And Trevor confessed that no one else had a better.

  "Then I suppose," he said, "that I shall have to do nothing about it?"

  "That's it," said O'Hara.

  "It'll be rather beastly meeting the man after this," said Trevor,presently. "Do you think he might possibly leave at the end of term?"

  "He's leaving at the end of the week," said O'Hara. "He was one of thefellows Dexter caught in the vault that evening. You won't see muchmore of Rand-Brown."

  "I'll try and put up with that," said Trevor.

  "And so will I," replied O'Hara. "And I shouldn't think Milton would beso very grieved."

  "No," said Trevor. "I tell you what will make him sick, though, andthat is your having milled with Rand-Brown. It's a job he'd have likedto have taken on himself."

  XXIV

  CONCLUSION

  Into the story at this point comes the narrative of Charles MereweatherCook, aged fourteen, a day-boy.

  Cook arrived at the school on the tenth of March, at precisely nineo'clock, in a state of excitement.

  He said there was a row on in the town.

  Cross-examined, he said there was no end of a row on in the town.

  During morning school he explained further, whispering his tale intothe attentive ear of Knight of the School House, who sat next to him.

  What sort of a row, Knight wanted to know.

  Cook deposed that he had been riding on his bicycle past the entranceto the Recreation Grounds on his way to school, when his eye wasattracted by the movements of a mass of men just inside the gate. Theyappeared to be fighting. Witness did not stop to watch, much as hewould have liked to do so. Why not? Why, because he was late already,and would have had to scorch anyhow, in order to get to school in time.And he had been late the day before, and was afraid that old Appleby(the master of the form) would give him beans if he were late again.Wherefore he had no notion of what the men were fighting about, but hebetted that more would be heard about it. Why? Because, from what hesaw of it, it seemed a jolly big thing. There must have been quitethree hundred men fighting. (Knight, satirically, "_Pile_ it on!")Well, quite a hundred, anyhow. Fifty a side. And fighting likeanything. He betted there would be something about it in the_Wrykyn_ _Patriot_ tomorrow. He shouldn't wonder if somebodyhad been killed. What were they scrapping about? How should _he_know!

  Here Mr Appleby, who had been trying for the last five minutes to findout where the whispering noise came from, at length traced it to itssource, and forthwith requested Messrs Cook and Knight to do him twohundred lines, adding that, if he heard them talking again, he wouldput them into the extra lesson. Silence reigned from that moment.

  Next day, while the form was wrestling with the moderately excitingaccount of Caesar's doings in Gaul, Master Cook produced from hispocket a newspaper cutting. This, having previously planted a forcibleblow in his friend's ribs with an elbow to attract the latter'sattention, he handed to Knight, and in dumb show requested him toperuse the same. Which Knight, feeling no interest whatever in Caesar'sdoings in Gaul, and having, in consequence, a good deal of time on hishands, proceeded to do. The cutting was headed "Disgraceful Fracas",and was written in the elegant style that was always so marked afeature of the _Wrykyn Patriot_.

  "We are sorry to have to report," it ran, "another of those deplorableebullitions of local Hooliganism, to which it has before now been ourpainful duty to refer. Yesterday the Recreation Grounds were made thescene of as brutal an exhibition of savagery as has ever marred thefair fame of this town. Our readers will remember how on a previousoccasion, when the fine statue of Sir Eustace Briggs was found coveredwith tar, we attributed the act to the malevolence of the Radicalsection of the community. Events have proved that we were right.Yesterday a body of youths, belonging to the rival party, wasdiscovered in the very act of repeating the offence. A thick coating oftar had already been administered, when several members of the rivalfaction appeared. A free fight of a peculiarly violent natureimmediately ensued, with the result that, before the police couldinterfere, several of the combatants had received severe bruises.Fortunately the police then arrived on the scene, and with greatdifficulty succeeded in putting a stop to the _fracas_. Severalarrests were made.

  "We have no desire to discourage legitimate party rivalry, but we feeljustified in strongly protesting against such dastardly tricks as thoseto which we have referred. We can assure our opponents that they cangain nothing by such conduct."

  There was a good deal more to the effect that now was the time for allgood men to come to the aid of the party, and that the constituents ofSir Eustace Briggs must look to it that they failed not in the hour ofneed, and so on. That was what the _Wrykyn Patriot_ had to say onthe subject.

  O'Hara managed to get hold of a copy of the paper, and showed it toClowes and Trevor.

  "So now," he said, "it's all right, ye see. They'll never suspect itwasn't the same people that tarred the statue both times. An' ye've gotthe bat back, so it's all right, ye see."

  "The only thing that'll trouble you now," said Clowes, "will be yourconscience."

  O'Hara intimated that he would try and put up with that.

  "But isn't it a stroke of luck," he said, "that they should have goneand tarred Sir Eustace again so soon after Moriarty and I did it?"

  Clowes said gravely that it only showed the force of good example.

  "Yes. They wouldn't have thought of it, if it hadn't been for us,"chortled O'Hara. "I wonder, now, if there's anything else we could doto that statue!" he added, meditatively.

  "My good lunatic," said Clowes, "don't you think you've done almostenough for one term?"

  "Well, 'myes," replied O'Hara thoughtfully, "perhaps we have, Isuppose."

  * * * * *

  The term wore on. Donaldson's won the final house-match by a matter oftwenty-six points. It was, as they had expected, one of the easiestgames they had had to play in the competition. Bryant's, who were theiropponents, were not strong, and had only managed to get into the finalowing to their luck in drawing weak opponents for the trial heats. Thereal final, that had decided the ownership of the cup, had beenDonaldson's _v._ Seymour's.

  Aldershot arrived, and the sports. Drummond and O'Hara coveredthemselves with glory, and brought home silver medals. But Moriarty, tothe disappointment of the school, which had counted on his pulling offthe middles, met a strenuous gentleman from St Paul's in the final, andwas prematurely outed in the first minute of the third round. To him,therefore, there fell but a medal of bronze.

  It was on the Sunday after the sports that Trevor's connection with thebat ceased--as far, that is to say, as concerned its unpleasantcharacter (as a piece of evidence that might be used to hisdisadvantage). He had gone to supper with the headmaster, accompaniedby Clowes and Milton. The headmaster nearly always invited a few of thehouse prefects to Sunday supper during the term. Sir Eustace Briggshappened to be there. He had withdrawn his insinuations concerning thepart supposedly played by a member of the school in the matter of thetarred statue, and the headmaster had sealed the _ententecordiale_ by asking him to supper.

  An ordinary man might have considered it best to keep off the delicatesubject. Not so Sir Eustace Briggs. He was on to it like glue. Hetalked of little else throughout the whole course of the meal.

  "My suspicions," he boomed, towards the conclusion of the feast, "whichhave, I am rejoiced to say, proved so entirely void of foundation andsignificance, were aroused in the fir
st instance, as I mentionedbefore, by the narrative of the man Samuel Wapshott."

  Nobody present showed the slightest desire to learn what the man SamuelWapshott had had to say for himself, but Sir Eustace, undismayed,continued as if the whole table were hanging on his words.

  "The man Samuel Wapshott," he said, "distinctly asserted that a smallgold ornament, shaped like a bat, was handed by him to a lad of agecoeval with these lads here."

  The headmaster interposed. He had evidently heard more than enough ofthe man Samuel Wapshott.

  "He must have been mistaken," he said briefly. "The bat which Trevor iswearing on his watch-chain at this moment is the only one of its kindthat I know of. You have never lost it, Trevor?"

  Trevor thought for a moment. _He_ had never lost it. He replieddiplomatically, "It has been in a drawer nearly all the term, sir," hesaid.

  "A drawer, hey?" remarked Sir Eustace Briggs. "Ah! A very sensibleplace to keep it in, my boy. You could have no better place, in myopinion."

  And Trevor agreed with him, with the mental reservationthat it rather depended on whom the drawer belonged to.